The below Parliamentary question was asked by Anna Turley on 2016-10-17.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many meetings Ministers of her Department have had with social media companies to discuss harmful online content since May 2015.
Sir Oliver Heald
Details of ministerial meetings with external companies are published on gov.uk.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Anna Turley on 2015-11-04.
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what action can be taken within state aid rules to secure assets of national strategic significance to the British economy.
Anna Soubry
A Member State may purchase or invest in an asset on purely commercial terms, as commercial investment is not subject to state aid rules. However, any subsequent injection of funds would be subject to the rules, unless it too was on commercial terms. It should be noted that the state aid rules apply equally to nationalised and privatised companies. With losses of over £600 million in just over three years and hundreds of millions in debts, commercial terms for SSI UK would have been impossible to meet.
More generally, it is possible to give a variety of types of aid under the rules including aid for research and development, and environmental protection. Restructuring and rescue of steel however is prohibited.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Fearn on 2015-12-01.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the annual value of tourism to the UK economy.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
The Office for National Statistics has estimated that tourism was worth £59.6 billion Gross Value Added to the UK economy in 2014.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Blenkinsop on 2016-01-06.
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps he is taking to ensure greater collaboration between businesses and education to promote skills for potential future careers.
Nick Boles
We are strengthening business influence in schools, further education, the skills system, higher education and in giving young people a broad experience of the careers options open to them. Our education reforms are ensuring that young people leave school or college with everything they need to get on and succeed in life. The new Careers and Enterprise Company aims to help schools and colleges in England to prepare young people aged 12 to 18 for the world of work, and increase the level of employer engagement in schools and colleges across England.
In further education we have given employer-led Local Enterprise Partnerships significant local influence over the skills system. National Colleges are being established by employer-led partnerships to design and deliver specific higher level training, and we are working in direct partnership with employers in reforming technical and professional education to ensure the new system provides the skills most needed for the 21st century economy. In trailblazer apprenticeships, employers develop the standards themselves.
In higher education, the government fully supports and actively encourages collaboration between universities and business. Partnership is needed to ensure graduate skills and employability meet the needs of business, to maximise the university sector’s capabilities in business-led research and innovation, and to realise the benefits of a strong role for Higher Education Institutions in the development of their local economies.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hylton on 2016-02-01.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of eyewitness accounts of starvation from across Syria; what action they have taken following that assessment; and in particular whether they will discuss with the government of Russia the provision of supplies by land and by air.
Baroness Verma
No one who has seen the images coming out of Madaya and other besieged towns can say this situation is anything other than utterly appalling. Across Syria, Assad and other parties to the conflict are wilfully impeding humanitarian access on a day-by-day basis. It is unacceptable and illegal to use starvation as a weapon of war. We are deeply concerned about the 4.6 million people who live in hard to reach areas, including almost 486,700 who live under siege conditions.
We have given support to the UN and international NGOs since the start of the conflict to deliver aid to besieged and hard to reach areas. On 11 January, the UN, Red Cross and Syrian Arab Red Crescent confirmed aid convoys had arrived in the hard to reach towns of Madaya, Foah and Kefraya. Further convoys have since arrived. These convoys are expected to enable 40,000 people inside Madaya, and 20,000 people inside Foah and Kefraya, to survive. UK funding to UN agencies directly supported these convoys with food parcels and medicine.
However, humanitarian access to those in need continues to shrink. In the past year, only 10% of all requests submitted by the UN to the regime to access besieged and hard-to-reach areas have been approved and delivered. That’s why it is vital we keep up the pressure on the regime and other conflict parties to let aid convoys in and to provide sustained, permanent and safe humanitarian access. Russia, in particular, has a special obligation to confront and condemn the atrocities being carried out against Syrian civilians.
When it comes to helping Syrians in besieged and hard-to-reach areas, we do not rule anything out but, right now, air drops are not a viable way of getting help to those in need. Use of air drops to deliver aid is high risk and should only be considered as a last resort when all other means have failed, and it is an effective way of getting humanitarian supplies to people. Critically, the UN is not currently calling for their use.
We are aware of reports of Russian airdrops into Deir Ez Zour. We are working to verify these claims and understand the nature and impact of any such airdrops, including the extent to which they may be effectively addressing needs. Unlike Madaya, Deir Ez Zour city is under regime control and is surrounded by Daesh.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Smith of Clifton on 2016-02-25.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what were the average speeds of traffic flows recorded in central London for the years 2008 to 2015 inclusive.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The average speeds are as set out in the table below. This information is based on material published on the Transport for London website.
Average traffic speeds (miles per hour) by functional sector of London. Working weekdays, by time period. TfL’s ‘network of interest’.
|
Area and time period |
2007 speed (mph) |
2008 speed (mph) |
2009 speed (mph) |
2010 speed (mph) |
2011 speed (mph) |
2012 speed (mph) |
2013 speed (mph) |
2014 speed (mph) |
2015 speed (mph) first 6 months only |
|
Central am peak |
9.4 |
9.1 |
9.4 |
9.4 |
9.3 |
9.3 |
9.4 |
8.9 |
8.3 |
|
Central inter-peak |
8.5 |
8.3 |
8.8 |
8.7 |
8.5 |
8.5 |
8.5 |
8.1 |
7.3 |
|
Central pm peak |
9 |
8.9 |
8.9 |
8.7 |
8.6 |
8.8 |
8.6 |
8.3 |
7.8 |
|
Inner am peak |
12.6 |
12.4 |
12.9 |
12.7 |
12.7 |
12.6 |
12.4 |
11.9 |
11.1 |
|
Inner inter-peak |
13.1 |
13 |
13.3 |
13.4 |
13.3 |
13.2 |
13.2 |
12.8 |
12.2 |
|
Inner PM peak |
11.4 |
11.4 |
11.2 |
11.5 |
11.4 |
11.4 |
11.2 |
10.6 |
10.3 |
|
Outer am peak |
19.3 |
19.6 |
20.1 |
20 |
20.1 |
19.9 |
19.5 |
18.6 |
17.7 |
|
Outer inter-peak |
21.3 |
21.4 |
21.4 |
21.6 |
21.6 |
21.7 |
21.8 |
21.1 |
21 |
|
Outer pm peak |
18.3 |
18.6 |
18.3 |
18.5 |
18.5 |
18.5 |
18.1 |
17.1 |
16.9 |
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Debbie Abrahams on 2016-03-21.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many disability living allowance claimants he expects to transfer to personal independence payment in each year to 2020.
Justin Tomlinson
We are rolling out Personal Independence Payment (PIP) to existing Disability Living Allowance (DLA) claimants in a controlled way. We will continue to monitor performance and will carefully control the number of people we choose to invite to claim PIP each month.
The forecast estimates for the numbers of people in receipt of Disability Living Allowance we currently expect to be awarded PIP, in each year to 2020, are in the table below and may be subject to change:
|
2016/17 |
2017/18 |
2018/19 |
2019/20 |
|
450,000 |
550,000 |
350,000 |
50,000 |
Notes:
Data rounded to the nearest 50,000
Includes both adults and children reaching age 16
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2016-04-26.
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what discussions he has had with the (a) Secretary of State for Education and (b) Northern Ireland Executive on increasing the involvement of children and young people of school age in commemorative events for the First World War.
David Evennett
My Department works in close partnership with the Department for Education on the First World War Centenary Battlefield Tours and Legacy 110 programmes for secondary schools, which we encourage schools to sign up to throughout the centenary period. To get even more young people involved in commemorations, we will soon launch the Great War Debate series for schools. We plan to hold one of these debates at the Clandeboye Estate, a First World War army training site, in November.
Children will take part in all our national commemorative events to mark the Battle of Jutland in Orkney on 31 May, and the Battle of the Somme at Thiepval and Manchester on 1 July. As one example, over 1300 school children are due to visit the Experience Field at Heaton Park in Manchester on 1 July, as part of the Somme commemorations.
Commemorative events in Northern Ireland are the responsibility of the Northern Ireland WWI Centenary Committee. The Chair of the Committee attends Government Advisory Group meetings where all aspects of the centenary programmes are discussed.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Rebecca Long Bailey on 2016-06-08.
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, if he will assess the effect of the use of Lariam on the quality of performance of military personnel on operations.
Mark Lancaster
Mefloquine (commercially known as Lariam) is an effective anti-malarial that is used by many militaries to protect their personnel while on operations. There is no defined caveat from any advisory body in the world that suggests the use of mefloquine should be restricted in military personnel or people who handle weapons.
Although there is no evidence that mefloquine impairs function, in accordance with guidance from Public Health England, the Civil Aviation Authority and others, the drug is not used by military aircrew. Mefloquine is also not used by divers, as its side effects could potentially be confused with decompression or narcosis events.
In October 2015, the results were published of a Ministry of Defence questionnaire-based study of anti-malarial use by UK Service personnel training in Kenya during 2012 and 2013. This found that significantly more doxycycline than mefloquine users reported that one or more adverse effects had interfered with their ability to do their job.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Philip Davies on 2016-09-02.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the average cost is of a Care Quality Commission inspection for a (a) hospital trust, (b) care home, (c) nursing home, (d) GP surgery and (e) ambulance service.
Mr Philip Dunne
The largest area of the Care Quality Commission’s expenditure relates to inspection activity which was a total of £134 million in 2015-16. As part of the CQC’s work to explore its value for money, the CQC calculated an average cost for inspections across the year for each sector. The average cost per inspection provided by the CQC for the financial year 2015-16 is:
– Hospitals: £107,500
– Primary Medical Services: £6,600
– Adult Social Care: £4,100
The CQC’s annual report, published on 21 July 2016, also sets out these costs per sector, per quarter, and the CQC is continuing to refine its costing of inspection activity. Inspection costs for ambulance services are unable to be provided within the timeframe of this Parliamentary Question.